Get Rid of Your Fear of Anxiety

Do you think it’s possible to get rid of anxiety? Read the title of this post again. It doesn’t say to get rid of anxiety. It says to get rid of your fear of anxiety. And, yes. It is possible to accept anxiety as an annoyance but nothing to be feared.

Get rid of your fear of how it feels to be anxious. If anxiety makes you feel lightheaded, stretch your arms out like an airplane and start spinning round and round. Make yourself lightheaded. If anxiety makes your heart pound faster, get up and do 50 jumping jacks. Get your heart pounding faster. Go ahead and drum up the feeling of anxiety. Give yourself a good dose of it.

Get rid of your paranoia about being anxious. If you’re worried that people will think less of you because you have a panic attack or act ditsy, then by golly, act more anxious! Get it over with. Don’t complete sentences during conversation. Bite your nails. Jiggle your legs. Wet your armpits with a sponge. Stutter. Make sure people know that you are super duper anxious. If someone thinks badly of you it’s because they’re miserable. Only a person who is hurting will judge you.

Get rid of your fear of the anxiety never ending. Maybe it won’t end. Maybe it will. Time will tell. Anxiety isn’t dangerous. It’s your reaction to anxiety that can make life chaotic. You can do anything anxious. You can do nothing by avoiding. Set your intentions. As an anxious person, who do you want to be? If the anxiety never lessens you can choose to acclimate. Become accustomed to feeling anxious and come to terms with having a thorn in your side.

Get rid of your fear of anxiety as a signal of bad things to come. Someone once said of me, “You don’t understand that we actually experience this stuff as real.” No one can know what it feels like to be in anyone’s shoes. But I certainly have been afraid of something terrible happening. And it sure felt real to me: “This time it’s really going to happen.” The truth is, if it’s not happening now, it’s not happening. If something bad does happen in real time, so be it. Bad things happen to everyone and we deal with them as they occur.